[cover: Giza pyramid complex.]

RETURN

(H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled - Vol. I Science, pp. 563-573, 1877.)

THE LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE RUINS OF SIAM

""Passing, we ascend a platform . . . and enter the temple itself through a columned portico, the facade of which is beautifully carved in basso-relievo with ancient mythological subjects. From this doorway, on either side, runs a corridor with a double row of columns, cut — base and capital — from single blocks, with a double, oval-shaped roof, covered with carving and consecutive sculptures upon the outer wall. This gallery of sculptures, which forms the exterior of the temple, consists of over half a mile of continuous pictures, cut in basso-relievo upon sandstone slabs six feet in width, and represents subjects taken from Hindu mythology, from the Ramayâna — the Sanscrit epic poem of India, with its 25,000 verses describing the exploits of the god Rama, and the son of the King of Oudh. The contests of the King of Ceylon, and Hanouma,{832} the monkey-god, are graphically represented. There is no keystone used in the arch of this corridor. On the walls are sculptured the immense number of 100,000 separate figures. One picture from the Ramayana . . . occupies 240 feet of the wall. . . . In the Nagkon-Wat as many as 1,532 solid columns have been counted, and among the entire ruins of Angkor . . . the immense number of 6,000, almost all of them hewn from single blocks and artistically carved. . . .

"But who built Nagkon-Wat? and when was it built? Learned men have attempted to form opinions from studies of its construction, and especially ornamentation," and have failed. "Native Cambodian historians," adds Vincent, "reckon 2,400 from the building of the temple. . . . I asked one of them how long Nagkon-Wat had been built. . . . 'None can tell when. . . . I do not know; it must have either sprung up from the ground or been built by giants, or perhaps by the angels' . . . was the answer."

When Stephens asked the native Indians "Who built Copan? . . . what nation traced the hieroglyphic designs, sculptured these elegant figures and carvings, these emblematical designs?" the dull answer he received was "Quien sabe?" — who knows! "All is mystery; dark, impenetrable mystery," writes Stephens. "In Egypt, the colossal skeletons of gigantic temples stand in all the nakedness of desolation. Here, an immense forest shrouded the ruins, hiding them from sight."{833}

But there are perhaps many circumstances, trifling for archæologists unacquainted with the "idle and fanciful" legends of old, hence overlooked; otherwise the discovery might have sent them on a new train of thought. One is the invariable presence in the Egyptian, Mexican, and Siamese ruined temples, of the monkey. The Egyptian cynocephalus assumes the same postures as the Hindu and Siamese Hanoumā and among the sculptured fragments of Copan, Stephens found the remains of colossal apes or baboons, "strongly resembling in outline and appearance the four monstrous animals which once stood in front, attached to the base of the obelisk of Luxor, now in Paris,{834} and which, under the name of the cynocephali, were worshipped at Thebes." In almost every Buddhist temple there are idols of huge monkeys kept, and some people have in their houses white monkeys on purpose "to keep bad spirits away."

"Was civilization," writes Louis de Carné,{835} "in the complex meaning we give that word, in keeping among the ancient Cambodians with what such prodigies of architecture seem to indicate? The age of Pheidias was that of Sophocles, Socrates, and Plato; Michael Angelo and Raphael succeeded Dante. There are luminous epochs during which the human mind, developing itself in every direction, triumphs in all, and creates masterpieces which spring from the same inspiration." "Nagkon-Wat," concludes Vincent, "must be ascribed to other than ancient Cambodians. But to whom? . . . There exist no credible traditions; all is absurd fable or
legend."

The latter sentence has become of late a sort of cant phrase in the mouths of travellers and archæologists. When they have found that no clew is attainable unless it can be found in popular legends, they turn away discouraged, and a final verdict is withheld. At the same time Vincent quotes a writer who remarks that these ruins "are as imposing as the ruins of Thebes, or Memphis, but more mysterious." Mouhot thinks they were erected "by some ancient Michael Angelo," and adds that Nagkon-Wat "is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome." Furthermore Mouhot ascribes the building again to some of the lost tribes of Israel, and is corroborated in that opinion by Miche, the French Bishop of Cambodia, who confesses that he is struck "by the Hebrew character of the faces of many of the savage Stiens." Henri Mouhot believes that, "without exaggeration, the oldest parts of Angkor may be fixed at more than 2,000 years ago." This, then, in comparison with the pyramids, would make them quite modern; the date is the more incredible, because the pictures on the walls may be proved to belong to those archaic ages when Poseidon and the Kabeiri were worshipped throughout the continent. Had Nagkon-Wat been built, as Dr. Adolf Bastian{836} will have it, "for the reception of the learned patriarch, Buddhagosa, who brought the holy books of the Trai-Pidok from Ceylon; or, as Bishop Pallegoix, who "refers the erection of this edifice to the reign of Phra Pathum Suriving," when "the sacred books of the Buddhists were brought from Ceylon, and Buddhism became the religion of the Cambodians," how is it possible to account for the following?

"We see in this same temple carved images of Buddha, four, and even thirty-two-armed, and two and sixteen-headed gods, the Indian Vishnu, gods with wings, Burmese heads, Hindu figures, and Ceylon mythology. . . . You see warriors riding upon elephants and in chariots, foot soldiers with shield and spear, boats, tigers, griffins . . . serpents, fishes, crocodiles, bullocks . . . soldiers of immense physical development, with helmets, and some people with beards — probably Moors. The figures," adds Mr. Vincent, "stand somewhat like those on the great Egyptian monuments, the side partly turned toward the front . . . and I noticed, besides, five horsemen, armed with spear and sword, riding abreast, like those seen upon the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum."{837}

For our part, we may add, that there are on the walls several repetitions of Dagon, the man-fish of the Babylonians, and of the Kabeirian gods of Samothrace. This may have escaped the notice of the few archæologists who examined the place; but upon stricter inspection they will be found there, as well as the reputed father of the Kabeiri — Vulcan, with his bolts and implements, having near him a king with a sceptre in his hand, which is the counterpart of that of Cheronaæ, or the "sceptre of Agamemnon," so-called, said to have been presented to him by the lame god of Lemnos. In another place we find Vulcan, recognizable by his hammer and pincers, but under the shape of a monkey, as usually represented by the Egyptians.

Now, if Nagkon-Wat is essentially a Buddhist temple, how comes it to have on its walls basso-relievos of completely an Assyrian character; and Kabeirian gods which, though universally worshipped as the most ancient of the Asiatic mystery-gods, had already been abandoned 200 years B.C., and the Samothracian mysteries themselves completely altered? Whence the popular tradition concerning the Prince of Roma among the Cambodians, a personage mentioned by all the native historians, who attribute to him the foundation of the temple? Is it not barely possible that even the Ramayâna, itself, the famous epic poem, is but the original of Homer's Iliad, as it was suggested some years ago? The beautiful Paris, carrying off Helen, looks very much like Râvana, king of the giants, eloping with Sita, Rama's wife? The Trojan war is a counterpart of the Ramayâna war; moreover, Herodotus assures us that the Trojan heroes and gods date in Greece only from the days of the Iliad. In such a case even Hanoumā, the monkey-god, would be but Vulcan in disguise; the more so that the Cambodian tradition makes the founder of Angkor come from Roma, which they place at the western end of the world, and that the Hindu Roma also apportions the west to the descendants of Hanoumā.

Hypothetical as the suggestion may now seem, it is worthy of consideration, if even for the sake of being refuted. The Abbé Jaquenet, a Catholic missionary in Cochin China, ever ready to connect the least glimmer of historical light with that of Christian revelation, writes, "Whether we consider the commercial relations of the Jews . . . when, in the height of their power, the combined fleets of Hiram and Solomon went to seek the treasures of Ophir, or whether we come lower down, to the dispersion of the ten tribes who, instead of returning from captivity, set out from the banks of the Euphrates, and reached the shores of the ocean . . . the shining of the light of revelation in the far East is not the less incontestable."

It looks certainly "incontestable" enough if we reverse the position and admit that all the light that ever shone on the Israelites came to them from this "far East," passing first through the Chaldeans and Egyptians. The first thing to settle, is to find out who were the Israelites themselves; and that is the most vital question. Many historians seem to claim, with good reason, that the Jews were similar or identical with the ancient Phoenicians, but the Phoenicians were beyond any doubt an Æthiopian race; moreover, the present race of Punjaub are hybridized with the Asiatic Æthiopians. Herodotus traces the Hebrews to the Persian Gulf; and south of that place were the Himyarites (the Arabians); beyond, the early Chaldeans and Susinians, the great builders. This seems to establish pretty well their Æthiopian affinity. Megasthenes says that the Jews were an Indian sect called Kalani, and their theology resembled that of the Indians. Other authors also suspect that the colonized Jews or the Judeans were the Yadus from Afghanistan — the old India.{838} Eusebius tells us that "the Æthiopians came from the river Indus and settled near Egypt." More research may show that the Tamil Hindus, who are accused by the missionaries of worshipping the Devil — Kutti-Sattan — only honor, after all, Seth or Satan, worshipped by the biblical Hittites.

But if the Jews were in the twilight of history the Phoenicians, the latter may be traced themselves to the nations who used the old Sanscrit language. Carthage was a Phoenician city, hence its name; for Tyre was equally Kartha. In the Bible the words Kir, Kirjath are frequently found. Their tutelar god was styled Mel-Kartha (Mel, Baal), or tutelar lord of the city. In Sanscrit a city or communal was a cul and its lord was Heri.{839} Her-culeus is therefore the translation of Melkarth and Sanscrit in origin. Moreover all the Cyclopean races were Phoenicians. In the Odyssey the Kuklopes (Cyclops) are the Libyan shepherds; and Herodotus describes them as miners and great builders. They are the ancient Titans or giants, who in Hesiod forge bolts for Zeus. They are the biblical Zamzummim from the land of the giants, the Anakim.

Now it is easy to see that the excavators of Ellora, the builders of the old Pagodas, the architects of Copan and of the ruins of Central America, those of Nagkon-Wat, and those of the Egyptian remains were, if not of the same race, at least of the same religion — the one taught in the oldest Mysteries. Besides, the figures on the walls of Angkor are purely archaic, and have nothing to do with the images and idols of Buddha, who may be of a far later origin. "What gives a peculiar interest to this section," says Dr. Bastian, "is the fact that the artist has represented the different nationalities in all their distinctive characteristic features, from the flat-nosed savage in the tasselled garb of the Pnom and the short-haired Lao, to the straight-nosed Rajaput, with sword and shield, and the bearded Moor, giving a catalogue of nationalities, like another column of Trajan, in the predominant physical conformation of each race. On the whole, there is such a prevalence of Hellenic cast in features and profiles, as well as in the elegant attitude of the horsemen, that one might suppose Xenocrates of old, after finishing his labors in Bombay, had made an excursion to the East."

Therefore, if we allow the tribes of Israel to have had a hand in the building of Nagkon-Wat, it cannot be as the tribes numbered and sent from the wilderness of Paran in search of the land of Canaan, but as their earlier ancestors, which amounts to the rejection of such tribes, as the casting of a reflection of the Mosaic revelation. And where is the outside historical evidence that such tribes were ever heard of at all, before the compilation of the Old Testament by Ezra? There are archæologists who strongly regard the twelve tribes as utterly mythical,{840} for there never was a tribe of Simeon, and that of Levi was a caste. There still remains the same problem to solve — whether the Judæans had ever been in Palestine before Cyrus. From the sons of Jacob, who had all married Canaanites, except Joseph, whose wife was the daughter of an Egyptian Priest of the Sun, down to the legendary Book of Judges there was an acknowledged general intermarrying between the said tribes and the idolatrous races: "And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods," says the third chapter of Judges, " . . . and the children of Israel forgat their God and served Baalim, and the groves." This Baal was Moloch, M'lch Karta, or Hercules. He was worshipped wherever the Phoenicians went. How could the Israelites possibly keep together as tribes, while, on the authority of the Bible itself, whole populations were from year to year uprooted violently by Assyrian and other conquerors? "So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day. And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel" (2 Kings, xvii. 23, 24).

If the language of Palestine became in time Semitic, it is because of Assyrian influence; for Phoenicia had become a dependency as early as the days of Hiram, and the Phoenicians evidently changed their language from Hamitic to Semitic. Assyria was "the land of Nimrod" (from Nimr, spotted), and Nimrod was Bacchus, with his spotted leopard-skin. This leopard-skin is a sacred appendage of the "Mysteries"; it was used in the Eleusinian as well as in the Egyptian Mysteries; it is found sculptured on the basso-relievos of Central American ruins, covering the backs of the sacrificers; it is mentioned in the earliest speculations of the Brahmans on the meaning of their sacrificial prayers, the Aytareya Brahmanam.{841} It is used in the Agnishtoma, the initiation rites of the Soma Mystery. When the neophyte is "to be born again," he is covered with a leopard-skin, out of which he emerges as from his mother's womb. The Kabeiri were also Assyrian gods. They had different names; in the common language they were known as Jupiter and Bacchus, and sometimes as Achiochersus, Aschieros, Achiochersa, and Cadmillus; and even the true number of these deities was uncertain with the people. They had other names in the "sacred language," known but to the hierophants and priests; and "it was not lawful to mention them." How is it then that we find them reproduced in their Samothracian "postures" on the walls of Nagkon-Wat? How is it again that we find them pronounced — albeit slightly disfigured — as known in that same sacred language, by the populations of Siam, Thibet, and India?

The name Kabeiri may be a derivation from אבד, Abir, great; הבד, Ebir, an astrologer, or חבד, Chabir, an associate; and they were worshipped at Hebron, the city of the Anakes — the giants. The name Abraham, according to Dr. Wilder, has "a very Kabeirian look." The word Heber, or Gheber may be the etymological root of the Hebrews, as applied to Nimrod and the Bible-giants of the sixth chapter of Genesis, but we must seek for their origin far earlier than the days of Moses. The name Phoenician affords its own proof. They are called Foinike" by Manetho, or Ph' Anakes, which shows that the Anakes or Anakim of Canaan, with whom the people of Israel, if not identical in race, had, by intermarriage, become entirely absorbed, were the Phoenicians, or the problematical Hyk-sos, as Manetho has it, and whom Josephus once declared were the direct ancestors of the Israelites. Therefore, it is in this jumble of contradictory opinions, authorities, and historical olla podrida that we must look for a solution of the mystery. So long as the origin of the Hyk-sos is not positively settled we can know nothing certain of the Israelitish people who, either wittingly or otherwise, have mixed up their chronology and origin in such an inextricable tangle. But if the Hyk-sos can be proved to have been the Pali-Shepherds of the Indus, who partially removed to the East, and came over from the nomadic Aryan tribes of India, then, perhaps, it would account for the biblical myths being so mixed up with the Aryan and Asiatic Mystery-gods. As Dunlap says: "The Hebrews came out of Egypt among the Canaanites; they need not be traced beyond the Exodus. That is their historical beginning. It was very easy to cover up this remote event by the recital of mythical traditions, and to prefix to it an account of their origin in which the gods (patriarchs) should figure as their ancestors." But it is not their historical beginning which is the most vital question for the world of science and theology.

It is their religious beginning. And if we can trace it through the Hyk-sos — Phoenicians, the Æthiopian builders and the Chaldeans — whether it is to the Hindus that the latter owe their learning, or the Brahmans who owe it to the Chaldeans, we have the means in hand to trace every so-called revealed dogmatical assertion in the Bible to its origin, which we have to search for in the twilight of history, and before the separation of the Aryan and Semitic families. And how can we do it better or more surely than through means afforded us by archæology? Picture-writing can be destroyed, but if it survives it cannot lie; and, if we find the same myths, ideas, and secret symbols on monuments all over the world; and if, moreover, these monuments can be shown to antedate the twelve "chosen" tribes, then we can unerringly show that instead of being a direct divine revelation, it was but an incomplete recollection or tradition among a tribe which had been identified and mixed up for centuries before the apparition of Abraham, with all the three great world-families; namely, the Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian nations, if so they must be called.

The Teraphim of Abram's father, Terah, the "maker of images," were the Kabeiri gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the Danites, and others.{842} Teraphim were identical with the seraphim, and these were serpent-images, the origin of which is in the Sanscrit sarpâ (the serpent), a symbol sacred to all the deities as a symbol of immortality. Kiyun, or the god Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness, is Siva, the Hindu,{843} as well as Saturn.{844} The Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian, having received them as a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and from thence to Troy; and they were worshipped far before the days of glory of Tyre or Sidon, though the former had been built 2760 B.C. From where did Dardanus derive them?

It is an easy matter to assign an age to ruins on merely the external evidence of probabilities; it is more difficult to prove it. Meanwhile the rock-works of Ruad, Perytus, Marathos, resemble those of Petra, Baalbek, and other Æthiopian works, even externally. On the other hand the assertions of certain archæologists who find no resemblance between the temples of Central America and those of Egypt and Siam, leave the symbologist, acquainted with the secret language of picture-writing, perfectly unconcerned. He sees the landmarks of one and the same doctrine on all of these monuments, and reads their history and affiliation in signs imperceptible to the uninitiated scientist. There are traditions also; and one of these speaks of the last of the king-initiates — (who were but rarely admitted to the higher orders of the Eastern Brotherhoods), who reigned in 1670. This king of Siam was the one so ridiculed by the French ambassador, de la Loubere, as a lunatic who had been searching all his life for the philosopher's stone.

One of such mysterious landmarks is found in the peculiar structure of certain arches in the temples. The author of the Land of the White Elephant remarks as curious, "the absence of the keystone in the arches of the building, and the undecipherable inscriptions." In the ruins of Santa Cruz del Quiche an arched corridor was found by Stephens, equally without a keystone. Describing the desolate ruins of Palenque, and remarking that the arches of the corridors were all built on this model, and the ceilings in this form, he supposes that "the builders were evidently ignorant of the principles of the arch, and the support was made by stones lapping over as they rose; as at Ocosingo, and among Cyclopean remains in Greece and Italy."{845} In other buildings, though they belong to the same group, the traveller found the missing keystone, which is a sufficient proof that its omission elsewhere was premeditated.

May we not look for the solution of the mystery in the Masonic manual? The keystone has an esoteric meaning which ought to be, if it is not, well appreciated by high Masons. The most important subterranean building mentioned in the description of the origin of Freemasonry, is the one built by Enoch. The patriarch is led by the Deity, whom he sees in a vision, into the nine vaults. After that, with the assistance of his son, Methuselah, he constructs in the land of Canaan, "in the bowels of the mountain," nine apartments on the models that were shown to him in the vision. Each was roofed with an arch, and the apex of each formed a keystone, having inscribed on it the mirific characters. Each of the latter, furthermore, represented one of the nine names, traced in characters emblematical of the attributes by which the Deity was, according to ancient Freemasonry, known to the antediluvian brethren. Then Enoch constructed two deltas of the purest gold, and tracing two of the mysterious characters on each, he placed one of them in the deepest arch, and he other entrusted to Methuselah, communicating to him, at the same time, other important secrets now lost to Freemasonry.

And so, among these arcane secrets, now lost to their modern successors, may be found also the fact that the keystones were used in the arches only in certain portions of the temples devoted to special purposes. Another similarity presented by the architectural remains of the religious monuments of every country can be found in the identity of parts, courses, and measurements. All these buildings belong to the age of Hermes Trismegistus, and however comparatively modern or ancient the temple may seem, their mathematical proportions are found to correspond with the Egyptian religious edifices. There is a similar disposition of court-yards, adyta, passages, and steps; hence, despite any dissimilarity in architectural style, it is a warrantable inference that like religious rites were celebrated in all. Says Dr. Stukely, concerning Stonehenge: "This structure was not erected upon any Roman measure, and this is demonstrated by the great number of fractions which the measurement of each part, according to European scales, gives. On the contrary the figures become even, as soon as we apply to it the measurement of the ancient cubit, which was common to the Hebrew children of Shem, as well as to the Phoenicians and Egyptians, children of Ham (?), and imitators of the monuments of unhewn and oracular stones."

The presence of the artificial lakes, and their peculiar disposition on the consecrated grounds, is also a fact of great importance. The lakes inside the precincts of Karnak, and those enclosed in the grounds of Nagkon-Wat, and around the temples in the Mexican Copan and Santa Cruz del Quiche, will be found to present the same peculiarities. Besides possessing other significances the whole area was laid out with reference to cyclic calculations. In the Druidical structures the same sacred and mysterious numbers will be found. The circle of stones generally consists of either twelve, or twenty-one, or thirty-six. In these circles the centre place belongs to Assar, Azon, or the god in the circle, by whatever other name he might have been known. The thirteen Mexican serpent-gods bear a distant relationship to the thirteen stones of the Druidical ruins.

The  (Tau), and the astronomical cross of Egypt    are conspicuous in several apertures of the remains of Palenque. In one of the basso-relievos of the Palace of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured on a hieroglyphic, right under the seated figure, is a Tau. The standing figure, which leans over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with the left hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its right with the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position is precisely that of a Christian bishop giving his blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often represented while at the Last Supper. Even the Hindu elephant-headed god of wisdom (or magic learning), Ganesha, may be found among the stucco figures of the Mexican ruins."

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{832} The Hanoumā is over three feet tall, and black as a coal. The Ramayana, giving the biography of this sacred monkey, relates that Hanoumā was formerly a powerful chieftain, who being the greatest friend of Rama, helped him to find his wife, Sitha, who had been carried off to Ceylon by Ravana, the mighty king of the giants. After numerous adventures Hanoumā was caught by the latter, while visiting the city of the giant as Rama's spy. For this crime Ravana had the poor Hanoumā's tail oiled and set on fire, and it was in extinguishing it that the monkey-god became so black in the face that neither himself nor his posterity could ever get rid of the color. If we have to believe Hindu legends this same Hanoumā was the progenitor of the Europeans; a tradition which, though strictly Darwinian, hence, scientific, is by no means flattering to us. The legend states that for services rendered, Rama, the hero and demi-god, gave in marriage to the monkey-warriors of his army the daughters of the giants of Ceylon — the Bâkshasas — and granted them, moreover, as a dowry, all western parts of the world. Repairing thence, the monkeys and their giant-wives lived happily and had a number of descendants. The latter are the present Europeans. Dravidian words are found in Western Europe, indicating that there was an original unity of race and language between the populations. May it not be a hint that the traditions are akin, of elfin and kobold races in Europe, and monkeys, actually cognate with them in Hindustan?
{833} "Incidents of Travels in Central America, etc.," vol. i., p. 105.
{834} They stand no more, for the obelisk alone was removed to Paris.
{835} See "The Land of the White Elephant," p. 221.
{836} The President of the Royal Geographical Society of Berlin.
{837} "The Land of the White Elephant," p. 215.
{838} The Phoenician Dido is the feminine of David ודיד ,דוד. Under the name of Astarte, she led the Phoenician colonies, and her image was on the prow of their ships. But David and Saul are names belonging to Afghanistan also.
{839} (Prof. A. Wilder.) This archæologist says: "I regard the Æthiopian, Cushite and Hamitic races as the building and artistic race who worshipped Baal (Siva), or Bel — made temples, grottos, pyramids, and used a language of peculiar type. Rawlinson derives that language from the Turanians in Hindustan."
{840} Prof. A. Wilder among others.
{841} See Martin Haug's translation, "The Aytareya Brahmanam."
{842} Judges xvii-xviii., etc.
{843} The Zendic H is S in India. Thus Hapta is Sapta; Hindu is Sindhaya. (A. Wilder.) " . . . the S continually softens to H from Greece to Calcutta, from the Caucasus to Egypt," says Dunlap. Therefore the letters K, H, and S are interchangeable.
{844} Guignant, "Op. cit.," vol. i., p. 167.
{845} "Incidents of Travel in Central America, etc."